Date Rape On College Campuses

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Rape has always been a sensitive subject, but there is a certain kind of rape that is affecting college campuses at an alarming rate. Date rape is rape committed by someone with whom the victim has gone on a date with. The term date rape has been a coined for a while, but the increasing numbers of reported date rapes on college campuses involving students has increased in the past few years. One in four females in college today have been sexually assaulted while in college. As of 2011, fifteen to thirty percent of college women had been victims of acquaintance rape (DeVaron). The definition of date rape has stirred up quite a controversy. A leading cause to this controversy is what voluntary or involuntary consent means to people. Date rape …show more content…

McDonald and Linda M. Kline write about “Perceptions of Appropriate Punishment for Committing Date Rape: Male College Students Recommend Lenient Punishments.” This source discusses a more common or stereotypical attitude for men about date rape. An experiment is done to support the fact that male college students recommend lenient punishments for date rape. The claims made first are that date rape is a crime that happens quite often on college campuses and that from experimentation it seems that college males are willing to force sex on females during dates. Although McDonald and Kline do not say this, it seems to be true on most college campuses. In the study, it is also found that college males have a more rape tolerant attitude, meaning they do not believe date rape is all that bad and they are willing to participate in it. This supports males being the perpetrator in college date rape. Another big issue the article brings up is that most date rape cases are not reported because a lot of woman do not realize it is date rape. Many women do not report date rape cases because they are embarrassed or ashamed or just do not realize it is date rape. Some other women believe date rape happened to them because they did something to deserve it. No woman deserves sexual assault. Date rape is not only subjected to woman, it happens to men too. This study is based on females being the victim only. This …show more content…

Twenty years ago date rape was just a song by Sublime, but today it is a problem running rampant among college campuses. A factor to this conflict is determining what voluntary or involuntary consent is to people. In “Date Rape Fallacies: Can There Be Purely Voluntary acts?” by David R. Carlin Jr. the definition of date rape is discussed and the important distinction between voluntary and involuntary actions. Sure, date rape is a phenomenon but one that has become a major problem. Carlin’s major claim is about the definition of date rape, since many people have many different opinions about it. Most believe date rape is sex without consent that happens on a date. However, studies now show rape advocates are saying that if the victim was influenced or coerced into sex to make their original answer “no” into a “yes” then it is classified as date rape. This new insight to a definition of date rape could explain the increase in date rape cases found on college campuses. Carlin introduces a sub claim about the serious problem of date rape specifically found in colleges. Date rape is especially a growing problem on college campuses, 25 to 50 percent of the undergraduate population of females have been victims of date rape on some campuses.The author takes a stand saying that it is hard to define what date rape is because everyone has a different definition along with a different view: whether if

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